JEAN MANIFACIER — Actor | Author | Director

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Taking to the stage from his earliest years and working alongside every kind of performing artist, Jean Manifacier built the foundations of his craft as a man of the theatre. For nearly thirty years he has devised and directed productions that blend classical music and the performing arts.

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These years of encounters and productions took him from the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées — where he directed the first Radio Classique Grands Prix with Cecilia Bartoli, William Christie and Charlotte Rampling — to the Jeunesses Musicales de France. At the instigation of Georges-François Hirsch (director of the Paris Opera, then of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and finally of the Orchestre de Paris), he wrote and staged several large-scale projects with the Orchestre de Paris — a fruitful collaboration that lasted more than fifteen years. He notably staged the prestigious ensemble’s 40th-anniversary celebration in partnership with France Musique, followed by some ten creations with the orchestra. In their latest collaboration he imagined an encounter between Wolfgang and Leopold Mozart, giving rise to the production Mozart l’Éternel, with Grégori Baquet and Sandrine Piau, presented in March 2017 at the Philharmonie de Paris and drawing more than 10,000 spectators.

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His several-year collaboration with the Jeunesses Musicales de France, under the direction of Bruno Boutleux, proved formative: there he met and developed projects with young artists such as Amanda Favier, François Lazarevitch, the Quatuor Modigliani and the Anches Hantées. He wrote and staged the production Orchestre sans frontière at the Salle Pleyel and then the Théâtre Mogador, where he met the conductor Fayçal Karoui, then director of the New York City Ballet. He has also written concert scenarios for the Rouen Opera orchestra, the Avignon Opera, the Cannes orchestra, the Royal Liège Philharmonic, the Lille orchestra, the Mulhouse orchestra and the Lamoureux orchestra — delighting more than 8,000 spectators at a premiere at the Cirque d’Hiver. He wrote and staged Laissez-vous conduire, ou l’art de diriger un orchestre for the Rouen orchestra. During the same period, again in Rouen, he became artistic director of Les Transeuropéennes — which each year brings together young talents from across Europe in France’s largest itinerant festival — for which he wrote and directed four seasons of shows at the Zénith.

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In 2003 he began a collaboration with the Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn, which welcomed him in residence: ten years of work that gave him the means to achieve unprecedented performances with a symphony orchestra. Some twenty productions came into being, establishing the foundations of a highly original form of concert that he writes and directs. He took part in the project L’orchestre prend ses quartiers, for which he designed and staged Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and Dvořák’s New World Symphony, filmed by France Télévisions — a year-long undertaking with local artists, community centres and schools.

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He has appeared on stage at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Le Chanteur de Mexico, a great public success that ran for a year to sold-out houses; and on the stage of the Opéra de Lyon in the title role of Offenbach’s Le Voyage dans la lune, broadcast live on France Musique. He recorded L’Amour masqué with the Avignon orchestra under Samuel Jean for Actes Sud, in the role of “Lui”, a recording awarded the “Révérence” distinction by L’Avant-Scène Opéra. In 2013 he created, for the company Total, the show marking the 60th anniversary of the Lacq plant and the end of its operations: with his accomplice, the director Raphaël de Vellis, Lacq en scène recounts the human and industrial adventure of a company across four generations of workers — with the workers, managers, engineers and union representatives playing their own roles for the duration of the show.

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It was on the basis of these years of work, and of the tools he developed in contact with companies, classical musicians and conductors, that Jean Manifacier decided in 2015 to create a community-education music project aimed at audiences who do not usually attend concert halls. The project took the name Autrement Classique and settled in Briare, in the Centre-Val de Loire region, where he develops creative work alongside committed young artists. A musical season, school workshops and an itinerant festival across the CCBLP came into being there.

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In October 2019 he performed the role of Lélio with the Mulhouse Symphony Orchestra under Jacques Lacombe, and shortly afterwards presented his staging of Ma Mère l’Oye at the Arsenal de Metz and the Opéra de Tours. In 2020 he adapted Esther Meynell’s novel The Little Chronicle of Magdalena Bach, building a dramaturgical narrative accompanied by Elena Bayeul-Gertsman on harpsichord and Emmanuel Balssa on viola da gamba and cello. In August 2021, with Sophie Marilley, he co-directed Opéra Vagabond, a roving, participatory production travelling from village to village to share the art of opera with audiences far from concert halls.

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In 2022 he was appointed project leader for the year of events celebrating the 20th anniversary of the OPPB and the inauguration of its new concert hall. He is currently working on a musical adaptation of Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, to be premiered during the 2024 season. With Jean-François Tobias and the town of Briare, he leads the European City of the Historical Piano project, supported by the Centre-Val de Loire region.

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Television: Les Paradis perdus, 52-min documentary, Paris Première (direction); À la recherche de Joseph R (France Télévisions); L’orchestre prend ses quartiers, France 3 national (writing/direction); Le Chanteur de Mexico, Théâtre du Châtelet, role of the director, France 2.

Discography: Le Voyage dans la lune, Cosmos (Opéra de Lyon); L’Amour masqué, “Lui” (Actes Sud); Lélio, ou le retour à la vie (Mulhouse Orchestra).

For several years Jean Manifacier worked with Public Système, directing projects for Total, Renault, France Télécom, Gaz de France, Bouygues, Coca-Cola, Glaxo, Dior, the SNCF and others.